This is exactly what conservatives warned everyone about when Obama signed TARP into law. Luckily Bush's tax cuts have mollified some of the strain on the tax payer.

sigdiamond2000: This is exactly what conservatives warned everyone about when Obama signed TARP into law. Luckily Bush's tax cuts have mollified some of the strain on the tax payer.

lol, you are funny.

sigdiamond2000: This is exactly what conservatives warned everyone about when Obama signed TARP into law. Luckily Bush's tax cuts have mollified some of the strain on the tax payer.

People like you fail to remember that most Conservatives were against TARP and rebelled against Bush.

cman: People like you fail to remember that most Conservatives were against TARP and rebelled against Bush.

You mean they were for it, before they were against it.

The Onanist: cman: People like you fail to remember that most Conservatives were against TARP and rebelled against Bush.

You mean they were for it, before they were against it.

Why are you bringing in facts into this conversation? This is a Fark politics thread

/Al Gore was also against abortion before he was for it
//People can change their mind when new information is presented to them

cman: //People can change their mind when new information is presented to them

That's crazy talk.

dahmers love zombie: cman: //People can change their mind when new information is presented to them

That's crazy talk.

No, it's true. Romney does it several times a day. With or without new information.

Lionel Mandrake: dahmers love zombie: cman: //People can change their mind when new information is presented to them

That's crazy talk.

No, it's true. Romney does it several times a day. With or without new information.

There is a difference between changing ones mind for politician reasons and changing ones mind due to being given new information. Romney is what one calls a "flip-flopper"

I'm not surprised that a bunch of Euroweenies are taking swipes at the ideas of George W. Bush after his presidency. They just love the Bower-In-Chief so much that they had to rag on our last true Decider.

cman: //People can change their mind when new information is presented to them they realize that their original position was not politically expedient.

Anything even halfway to "too big to fail" should probably be broken into three using the anti-trust/anti-monopoly laws.

The current estimate of the eventual loss that taxpayers will be left with from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is $60bn

Look at the bright side:

60 billion is only half a years' spending on the war in Afghanistan.

USA! USA! USA! G-O-O-O-O Bankers!

Therion: The current estimate of the eventual loss that taxpayers will be left with from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is $60bn

Look at the bright side:

60 billion is only half a years' spending on the war in Afghanistan.

USA! USA! USA! G-O-O-O-O Bankers!

Yeah, its not like terrorists flew planes into buildings and the region is still highly unstable or something

Rapmaster2000: I'm not surprised that a bunch of Euroweenies are taking swipes at the ideas of George W. Bush after his presidency. They just love the Bower-In-Chief so much that they had to rag on our last true Decider.

Wait, what? Was Bush mentioned in this article? I must have missed that. And the article itself is based on a report from Christy Romero, which has generated similar articles all over the world, including such bastions of liberalism as The Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001 42405270230397810457736426273641 2 398.html (can't link, Fark hates the WSJ)

Take your partisan hackery and your sad need to play the victim and shove them up your ass.

cman: Yeah, its not like terrorists flew planes into buildings and the region is still highly unstable or something

I was all for kicking Taliban ass, starting back when they announced plans to blow up the Buddha statues.

Now, I'm not so thrilled about a decade of seeing my friends (and/or their kids!) die to support Karzai's opium empire.

cman: //People can change their mind when new information is presented to them

Yeah, it's amazing how fast minds can change when they're presented with a Democrat in the White House...

sigdiamond2000: This is exactly what conservatives warned everyone about when Obama signed TARP into law. Luckily Bush's tax cuts have mollified some of the strain on the tax payer.

Yeah, in the parallel universe, but that's not what happened in this one.

cman: Lionel Mandrake: dahmers love zombie: cman: //People can change their mind when new information is presented to them

That's crazy talk.

No, it's true. Romney does it several times a day. With or without new information.

There is a difference between changing ones mind for politician reasons and changing ones mind due to being given new information. Romney is what one calls a "flip-flopper"

Romney's campaign theme should be "Cult of Personality" by Living Color.
I exploit you, still you love me...

SIGTARP Is right, but for the wrong reasons.

When most people thing of TARP they think of all the money we lent large banks and companies like GM and AIG,

All of that money will most likely return to us with a handsome profit. You can go to FinancialStability.gov and see the exact figures but I'm personally aware of one insurance company that borrowed about $3 Billion under tarp and paid us back about $4.3 billion to reclaim the stock warrants they gave us as collateral less than a year later. That's pretty damned good ROI.

OTOH TARP also included things like HAMP which was the effort to bailout out homeowners and modify their mortgages. That, for various reasons mostly involving the mortgage holders acting in bad faith, has been a bad money sink and the source of most of our losses.

What in The: cman: Lionel Mandrake: dahmers love zombie: cman: //People can change their mind when new information is presented to them

That's crazy talk.

No, it's true. Romney does it several times a day. With or without new information.

There is a difference between changing ones mind for politician reasons and changing ones mind due to being given new information. Romney is what one calls a "flip-flopper"

Romney's campaign theme should be "Cult of Personality" by Living Color.
I exploit you, still you love me...

I tell you one and one makes three!

And this is news?

I thought it was pretty well known that some parts of TARP would end up as a loss and some parts would be repaid with interest. In the end it would end up as a marginal loss or profit depending on where the rubble landed and how much the MBS's were eventually sold for.

I also thought that everyone acknowledged that it had to be done. We had deliberately decided to not pay attention to the banks and when they all started to kerplode it would take something like TARP to save the financial sector from near-total collapse. It was a bitter pill and a lot of assholes got paid, but the option was a financial black hole.

Just because there's no profit doesn't mean that it was not absolutely necessary.
60bn well spent if you ask me, except the money should not have been handed over no questions and no accountability asked. So yes, it could have been done better, but it stopped the hemorrhaging.

As if there was someone sitting at their mailbox waiting.

"Oh boy! Tarp made a profit for the taxpayers! I can't wait to get my share of it. That check is gonna get here any minute."

From the perspective of the taxpayer, there is no profit to be had. Only varying degrees of loss.

Now on the other hand, if you happen to be some combination of current or past employee of the treasury department, federal reserve, and/or large wall street banks then you get to profit.

Came for the spin to distract from the fact that TARP does not look like it will earn taxpayers any money.(Especially when you consider that even if it is paid back, it's still not a win).

A little disapointed that the effort has been anemic.

cman: People like you fail to remember that most Conservatives were against TARP and rebelled against Bush.


People like you fail to remember that most everyone was against TARP, nobody cheered for it, nobody campaigned for it. However, in hindsight it looks to have been a reasonably smart move, and while I disliked Bush signing it, I grudgingly give him respect for doing something that helped prevent a much greater problem.

Damn Obama and his infernal time machine!

abb3w: Anything even halfway to "too big to fail" should probably be broken into three using the anti-trust/anti-monopoly laws.

[hvstatic4.hypervocal.com image 640x413]

An extra helping of THIS, please.

Seriously, and how about breaking up the circle jerk of media over-consolidation first.

What in The: cman: Lionel Mandrake: dahmers love zombie: cman: //People can change their mind when new information is presented to them

That's crazy talk.

No, it's true. Romney does it several times a day. With or without new information.

There is a difference between changing ones mind for politician reasons and changing ones mind due to being given new information. Romney is what one calls a "flip-flopper"

Romney's campaign theme should be "Cult of Personality" by Living Color.
I exploit you, still you love me...

I've also thought that "You give me power in your God's name" is especially poignant.

Wait does this mean TARP is Obama's fault again?

It was before until we heard it was profitable, then we learned the real truth: Bush enacted it

Did the real truth change back?

BojanglesPaladin: Came for the spin to distract from the fact that TARP does not look like it will earn taxpayers any money.(Especially when you consider that even if it is paid back, it's still not a win).

A little disapointed that the effort has been anemic.

Because it was designed as a huge moneymaker?

bulldg4life: BojanglesPaladin: Came for the spin to distract from the fact that TARP does not look like it will earn taxpayers any money.(Especially when you consider that even if it is paid back, it's still not a win).

A little disapointed that the effort has been anemic.

Because it was designed as a huge moneymaker?

seriously, it wasn't meant to be a one-in-a-lifetime can't lose investment opportunity, it was meant to keep the economy from crashing into a sustained depression. every dollar we get back is a happy side effect.

cman: Lionel Mandrake: dahmers love zombie: cman: //People can change their mind when new information is presented to them

That's crazy talk.

No, it's true. Romney does it several times a day. With or without new information.

There is a difference between changing ones mind for politician reasons and changing ones mind due to being given new information. Romney is what one calls a "flip-flopper"

Remember when all the political cartoons used to show Clinton as a waffle due to him flip-flopping? I think it's time to bring it back for Romney.

qorkfiend: cman: //People can change their mind when new information is presented to them

Yeah, it's amazing how fast minds can change when they're presented with a Democrat in the White House...

According to recent information, they changed their minds approximately 6 HOURS after Obama was inaugurated.

qorkfiend: cman: //People can change their mind when new information is presented to them

Yeah, it's amazing how fast minds can change when they're presented with a Democrat black man in the White House...

FTFY

Anyone who still believe all that crap about "We The People" is an idiot.

This country belongs to the rich, banks, and big business.

TARP had to happen to stabalize the financial markets and stop a potential run on the banks. The real problem with it is that it had to happen in the first place.

Corrupt politicians (mostly democrats) partnering themselves with a corrupt corporation run by former political operatives (again mostly democrats) at Fannie Mae and their big doners buddies on Wall Street (despite what they spoon feed you......mostly democrats)

We must ask ourselves this "With all of those fine people looking out for us.....how the hell could this have happend?" I guess we need to blame the republicans for not stopping the democrats.

BojanglesPaladin: Came for the spin to distract from the fact that TARP does not look like it will earn taxpayers any money.(Especially when you consider that even if it is paid back, it's still not a win).

A little disapointed that the effort has been anemic.

Depending on what goalposts you're talking about. If you mean keeping business solvent and people employed... um, yeah, win.

//twenty-five. months. job. growth.

I love this goal post shifting. Originally people on FARK swore up and down that ALL the money would be lost going into TARP and now it's "Hey it's not going to make a big profit!! See we told you!!!"

MFL: TARP had to happen to stabalize the financial markets and stop a potential run on the banks. The real problem with it is that it had to happen in the first place.

Corrupt politicians (mostly democrats) partnering themselves with a corrupt corporation run by former political operatives (again mostly democrats) at Fannie Mae and their big doners buddies on Wall Street (despite what they spoon feed you......mostly democrats)

We must ask ourselves this "With all of those fine people looking out for us.....how the hell could this have happend?" I guess we need to blame the republicans for not stopping the democrats.

... Yes, the Democrats are at fault. Just them. Yup.

You foolish little man.

Less than 1/10 of the Defense yearly budget to save the country from going into another depression? I'm okay with this! With TARP and other bailouts, Bush and Obama did what was necessary instead of what was popular.

MFL: TARP had to happen to stabalize the financial markets and stop a potential run on the banks. The real problem with it is that it had to happen in the first place.

Corrupt politicians (mostly democrats) partnering themselves with a corrupt corporation run by former political operatives (again mostly democrats) at Fannie Mae and their big doners buddies on Wall Street (despite what they spoon feed you......mostly democrats)

We must ask ourselves this "With all of those fine people looking out for us.....how the hell could this have happend?" I guess we need to blame the republicans for not stopping the democrats.

Really? It had nothing to do with deregulating wall street? The bubble may have been a big problem with the housing market, but who was crying for all these years about regulations? Funny how you glossed over credit default swaps in your "analysis".

MAXIMUM CONSERVATIVE BUTTHURT.

BigBurrito: cman: People like you fail to remember that most Conservatives were against TARP and rebelled against Bush.


People like you fail to remember that most everyone was against TARP, nobody cheered for it, nobody campaigned for it. However, in hindsight it looks to have been a reasonably smart move, and while I disliked Bush signing it, I grudgingly give him respect for doing something that helped prevent a much greater problem.

The problem with TARP is that many of the companies that survived shouldn't have. These same companies will fark up again and put us back into another mess.

Systemic risk aside, these assholes made their own damn bed and they should have slept in it.

I don't know if I buy this report:

Per the underlying SIGTARP Linkreport:

According to Treasury, the largest losses from TARP are
expected to come from housing programs and from assistance to AIG and the automotive industry

Something like 40b in losses on housing programs, 24b on AIG, 25b on Auto companies, offset by gains on other programs.

There is no underlying calculation of the expected gain/loss. I know for a fact that AIG will come very close to breaking even if AIG's stock price stays where it is. I know we'll lose money on the auto bailouts, and it is also likely that we'd lose money on housing loans, but it makes me question the entirity of the report if they could screw up the AIG number.

ajt167: Less than 1/10 of the Defense yearly budget to save the country from going into another depression? I'm okay with this! With TARP and other bailouts, Bush and Obama did what was necessary instead of what was popular.

Yep.

It would of cost more money in loss of tax revenue for the economy to fall even more in the shiatter.

cman: BigBurrito: cman: People like you fail to remember that most Conservatives were against TARP and rebelled against Bush.


People like you fail to remember that most everyone was against TARP, nobody cheered for it, nobody campaigned for it. However, in hindsight it looks to have been a reasonably smart move, and while I disliked Bush signing it, I grudgingly give him respect for doing something that helped prevent a much greater problem.

The problem with TARP is that many of the companies that survived shouldn't have. These same companies will fark up again and put us back into another mess.

Systemic risk aside, these assholes made their own damn bed and they should have slept in it.

The shiatty part was that their bed is filled with C-4 and is in YOUR house.

MFL: TARP had to happen to stabalize the financial markets and stop a potential run on the banks. The real problem with it is that it had to happen in the first place.

Corrupt politicians (mostly democrats) partnering themselves with a corrupt corporation run by former political operatives (again mostly democrats) at Fannie Mae and their big doners buddies on Wall Street (despite what they spoon feed you......mostly democrats)

We must ask ourselves this "With all of those fine people looking out for us.....how the hell could this have happend?" I guess we need to blame the republicans for not stopping the democrats.

Freddie Mae -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- I see the heads who are here; I want to thank you all for coming -- (laughter) -- have committed to provide more money for lenders. They've committed to help meet the shortage of capital available for minority home buyers.

Fannie Mae recently announced a $50 million program to develop 600 homes for the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. Franklin [Raines], I appreciate that commitment. They also announced $12.7 million investment in a condominium project in Harlem. It's the beginnings of a series of initiatives to help meet the goal of 5.5 million families. Franklin told me at the meeting where we kicked this office, he said, I promise you we will help, and he has, like many others in this room have done.

Freddie Mac recently began 25 initiatives around the country to dismantle barriers and create greater opportunities for homeownership. One of the programs is designed to help deserving families who have bad credit histories to qualify for homeownership loans. ...

Listen to that lousy Democrat!

MFL

TARP had to happen to stabalize the financial markets and stop a potential run on the banks. The real problem with it is that it had to happen in the first place.

Corrupt politicians (mostly democrats) partnering themselves with a corrupt corporation run by former political operatives (again mostly democrats) at Fannie Mae and their big doners buddies on Wall Street (despite what they spoon feed you......mostly democrats)

We must ask ourselves this "With all of those fine people looking out for us.....how the hell could this have happend?" I guess we need to blame the republicans for not stopping the democrats.

really doublin' down on that from the other thread.

It was not a democrat or republican that caused...and it was 3 decades of looking the other way and letting banks be banks. It was greed.

But keep playing your side. USA USA...wait REPUBLICANS REPUBLICANS

In response to the "TARP saved the economy and also millions of babies and kittens" claims.

Hi, you should be afraid of tigers. They are very dangerous. There is hope however; I have a rock which I can sell you for $100 which will protect you from tigers. After buying it you'll find you are completely safe from tiger attacks.

The fact of the matter is, the end of civilization was not coming. The economy was never going to collapse with any permanence and put us all back in caves and rags. The powerful people exaggerated the severity of such an event in order to convince us regular scrubs to go along with the "give the banks free money" plan.

The economy goes back and forth between down and up. If you ever hear anyone use the phrase "But this time it's different!!!" either when discussing the potential for up or down, then it is prudent to judge everything they say to be either ignorant or malevolent bullshiat. At a minimum ignore them, but best case scenario is to mock them mercilessly. See for example, Paul "we need a housing bubble to save us from the dotcom bubble" Krugman.

sigdiamond2000: This is exactly what conservatives warned everyone about when Obama signed TARP into law. Luckily Bush's tax cuts have mollified some of the strain on the tax payer.

Well played 8/10. You have hooked a few already

Larofeticus: In response to the "TARP saved the economy and also millions of babies and kittens" claims.

Hi, you should be afraid of tigers. They are very dangerous. There is hope however; I have a rock which I can sell you for $100 which will protect you from tigers. After buying it you'll find you are completely safe from tiger attacks.

The fact of the matter is, the end of civilization was not coming. The economy was never going to collapse with any permanence and put us all back in caves and rags. The powerful people exaggerated the severity of such an event in order to convince us regular scrubs to go along with the "give the banks free money" plan.

The economy goes back and forth between down and up. If you ever hear anyone use the phrase "But this time it's different!!!" either when discussing the potential for up or down, then it is prudent to judge everything they say to be either ignorant or malevolent bullshiat. At a minimum ignore them, but best case scenario is to mock them mercilessly. See for example, Paul "we need a housing bubble to save us from the dotcom bubble" Krugman.

Oh I see, there was no danger, it was all made up. A convenient, if incredibly, viciously stupid argument.